NEW YORK, July 26 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices rose to close to $79 per barrel in New York Monday with equity markets mostly higher in Asia, Europe and on Wall Street.

Prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange added 62 cents from a prior settlement to $78.95 per barrel. The price of front contract New York Harbor No. 2 heating oil declined 0.0069 cents to $2.0436 per gallon. Reformulated blendstock gasoline prices slipped, losing 0.0169 cents to $2.1053 per gallon.

Henry Hub natural gas prices for August gained 0.042 cents to $4.622 per million British thermal units.

At the retail level, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline rose to $2.742 per gallon from Sunday's $2.737, AAA said.

Asian markets were mostly higher, with the Sensex index in India falling, off 0.61 percent. In Europe, in midday trading, stocks were modestly higher. On Wall Street, stocks indexes rose about 1 percent.

British petroleum giant BP's board of directors announced it would replace Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward with Robert Dudley, the former head of BP in Russia.

Dudley will take over to steer the company through massive cleanup operations in the Gulf of Mexico and through an untold number of legal issues involving the massive oil spill that began with an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform on April 20.